Winner, as determined by listener votes on the Sparklit poll, will get to be the official BCrime-approved musician. We'll give you front-page real estate to plug all of your shows, albums, myspace page, basement tapes/or whatever for one year. Aim for funny, original and catchy! Make us laugh and keep it short!

* Not necessarily from the WYR broadcast ... but you must use exact quotes as the center of your composition!

I usually hate this kind of first-person present-tense writing (paint a vivid portrait of lunch with the Guv and his calorie-conscious wife. (Equal® on fruit and sugar in coffee... something ain't right!)Crazy like a feeble octogenarian, or crazy like a fox? Perhaps this WYPR interview holds the answer ... Hoo hoo hoo!

Police stops in Waverly are turning up firearms, as seen in the Police Blotter. (Oh, and by the way, East 30th Street is not in Central. )A reality check in up-and-coming Patterson Park as a police officer is shot on patrol and rushed to Shock Trauma. Apparently, there are still a few guns there, too.

Federal judge Richard Bennett has assigned the ACLU/NAACP civil rights case against the Police Department to the judge hearing the Jones case regarding detention conditions, noting a commonality of interests in the adjudication of the two cases.

Why can't we fill the whole big area in front of city hall with pillories, and hold people in them for three-hour stints for all of the "abated by arrest" crimes? Why did we ever get rid of the pillory? Anyone? Anyone?

Wednesday, September 6, 2006

The Baltimore City Grand Jury indicted Davon Pearson, 19, for first-degree murder and conspiracy to murder. Court documents allege that on August 3, 2006, Howard Tavon Jones was found with a fatal gunshot wound to the head and Pearson was identified as the person seen in the area at the time gunshots were heard. An arraignment is scheduled for September 29.

WJ's story of William Langley, 49, sentenced to life in prison plus 20 years, consecutive for murder and a handgun count. A Baltimore City jury convicted Langley June 2, 2006 of first-degree murder and use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence for the killing of Korean immigrant Nae Chun Pak, 46 at Cherry Hill Friedchicken Carry-out NFish. Langley had been out of jail for less than a year and had served time for murder.

"Nine of the 10 employees of the [Baltimore city circuit court] jury division signed grievances against [Jury Commissioner Nancy Dennis and her lead worker, Cheryl Reese] in June and requested a transfer. Last month, jury division employees staged a lunch-hour walkout along with union members.

The jury division employees allege that Reese set unrealistic expectations with respect to their workload and engaged in verbal harassment.

Dennis, the employees allege, is often absent from the office and has changed the policy with respect to jurors who fail to appear for jury duty so that the employees were asked to handle an additional 400 to 500 calls a day.

Reached by telephone last week, Dennis declined to comment on the allegations.

Jury division employees said last week that they welcomed Reese's transfer."

Why we love this town: Apparently Comptroller W. D. Schaefer's bizarre "old-fashioned hair makes the man" remarks were not an off-the-cuff thing! He was quoted as saying something nearly identical (yet nonsensical in a different way) to Post columnist Marc Fisher! Is he 1. genuinely senile2. having a big joke on everyone 3. commenting on the gender wage gap? Whatever-- if Janet was my client I'd have her in a granny gown with a team of trannies serving up dog treats at the ASPCA this minute!

A Baltimore City jury convicted William Langley, 48, of Parkville, Maryland of the first-degree murder of Nae Chun Pak and the use of a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence today. The jury deliberated for approximately seven hours yesterday and today after hearing two days of testimony this week. Judge Roger W. Brown set sentencing for September 6. Says the SA,

On October 3, 2005 in the 600 block of Cherry Hill Road Langley and Nae Chun Pak, 46, got into an altercation about a food order that Langley had placed in the victim's carry out store. Pak returned Langley's money and Langley left the store, only to return a short time later and fatally shoot Pak in the head.

Wow, BCrime readers don't have much nice to say about the Baltimore Police. Only 17 of 113 respondents reported never having a negative experience. Reckless driving, rudeness, slow response times, refusing to take a report, arrests without cause .... I guess we already knew the BPD had a major PR problem, but that's pretty bad. Assuming the BPD cares what citizens think, how could it repair its image? Is it even possible?

Irony, Two-Edged Swords, etcA teenager is being questioned after the death of Dr. Wayne Fenton of Bethesda. Fenton was a nationally known schizophrenia expert and director for clinical affairs in the Division of Mental Disorders, Behavioral Research and AIDS at NIMH ... but apparently didn't realize the danger posed by his own patient.